The magazine of history with notes and queries, Vol. II, No. 6, December 1905

by Various

SULLIVAN’S GREAT MARCH INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY

II.

CHAPTER IV—Concluded.

Sullivan having heard nothing from either Brodhead or Clinton, became especially anxious about the latter, fearing that he might be waylaid by a union of the Tories under Butler and McDonald with Brant’s forces. On the 16th of August, he sent forward a picked force of nine hundred men, under Generals Poor and Hand, with the Coehorn mortar and eight days’ rations, to advance and meet the right wing. Marching to Owego, then an Indian village, and to Choconut, containing fifty long houses, they heard at sunset of the 18th, Clinton’s evening gun. This they answered with their Coehorn. Between the present city of Binghamton and Owego the two forces met and the forest resounded with sounds of mutual acclaim and welcome to brothers in arms. The place of their junction, as we see on the map, is named Union, now a flourishing village. Then the host, the flotilla in boats and the men along the flats and heights, moved down the Susquehanna in fine array. As the united forces of men from three states thus drew near the camp at Tioga Point, Sullivan ordered out the whole army to give them welcome. The fifers and drummers furnished lively music and a feu de joie, by the infantry drawn up in single line, completed the ceremonies. This was at noon on Sunday, 21st, and on the site of the present village of Athens.

Previous to the arrival of Clinton’s brigade, Sullivan (August 11) had sent westward up the river valley, a party of eight of his bravest officers and men, to reconnoiter the Indian town of Chemung. This collection of bark houses was built on the first great river flat above the village in Chemung county, at present called by that name. Keeping away from the trail they reached the hill top and looked down upon the town, finding everything in confusion. The Indians fearing an immediate attack in force, were getting ready to move westward. When this scouting party returned to the main camp at three o’clock the next day, Sullivan ordered his whole force to be ready to march at a moment’s notice. At 8 P. M., August 12, he started with most of his force on a night march and pushed on through swamps and forests. At morning finding themselves in a fog, they also discovered that the enemy had fled.

General Hand asked that he be allowed to take Colonel Hubley’s regiment and the Wyoming companies to pursue the foe. This request was granted and our men pushed eagerly on. In spite of all wariness, Captain Bush’s company of the Eleventh Pennsylvania got into an Indian ambush, and six of the Continentals were killed and nine wounded. Our men rallied and drove the Indians off the ground with a loss equal to their own. Then they began destroying sixty acres of standing corn, then in the milk, by cutting down the stalks. While at this work they were again fired on by the Indians in hiding, and one man was killed and five were wounded. Forty acres of maize were left untouched for the future use of the army, and then the whole force returned, greatly wearied with fatigue and the extreme heat. The bodies of the dead were brought back to camp for decent burial.

It was a sad occasion, when in the forest, the seven slain were buried in one grave, which, as was usual, had all outward marks obliterated, so that the savages could not exhume and mutilate the corpses. Then their comrades fired memorial vollies. Thus perished by the bullets of the enemy the first of the men in Sullivan’s main expedition. Two days afterwards, a corporal and four men, who were guarding cattle on Queen Esther’s plains, were fired on by sneaking Indians. One was shot dead and one wounded. In the rude hospital, quickly built out of green wood, within the lines of the diamond-shaped Fort Sullivan, the fifteen wounded men found shelter and care. In 1897, in digging foundations for the edifice of the Tioga Point Historical Society, at Athens, Pa., the bones of the buried Continentals were exhumed, and with other relics of 1779 are now under glass in the cases of the Spalding Museum.

Having his whole effective force under his direct command, Sullivan reorganized the army, and announced both the order of march and the order of battle. The light troops under General Hand were to form the advance, the riflemen acting as scouts. Poor’s brigade was to guard the right and Maxwell’s brigade the left of the army, Clinton’s brigade forming the rear guard. The park of nine pieces of artillery was placed in the center, with three columns of pack horses on either side. A morning and evening gun was to be fired daily and on account of the length and narrowness of the moving line through the woods, a horn, instead of drums, was to announce the orders to march or halt. The corps of engineers and surveyors were to measure each rod of ground traversed, and maps of the region traversed were to be made.

In the fort, Colonel Shreve was left with a garrison of two hundred and fifty men of the New Jersey regiment. It was ordered that when further supplies should come up from Wyoming, Captain Reed should proceed up the Chemung Valley, build a fort where Newtown Creek joins the river (at Elmira), and there await the return of the army from the Genesee valley.

The army was now eager to move into the unknown wilderness. The route was up the Chemung river, into the Seneca country, and through the Land of Lakes. There was no hope of reinforcements or relief, and, in case of defeat, of any quarter from the foe. Over paths never trodden by any white man, save the lone trader, trapper, or captive, they must now find much of their food and rely wholly on their own valor. How brave must these men have been, and how equally worthy of fame and honor, was this expedition in comparison with Sherman’s march through Georgia to the sea in 1864.

(It is to be noted that in the Centennial celebration of 1879, General William Tecumseh Sherman, was present in the Chemung valley, with words of memorial and congratulations to the thousands present, as well as with praise of the men of 1779 who had given him so inspiring a precedent of success.)

CHAPTER V
THE GREAT BATTLE NEAR ELMIRA

One of the first obstacles to the army, was a very high hill at the edge of the river. To avoid this, all but the infantry crossed the river twice, being supported and guarded against hostile attack by Maxwell’s New Jersey regiments. The other brigades marched over the hill, and camp was made on the site of the Indian town of Chemung which the advanced detachments had destroyed two weeks before.

Our fathers thought few articles of food more delicious than green corn roasted in the ear. So the maize in the fields near by helped to make a good supper. In addition, the army enjoyed a feast of potatoes, beans, cucumbers, watermelons, squashes and other vegetables which were here in great plenty. It was the season of ripeness.

Towards the end of July, there had gathered together, whites and reds, Indians, Tories, Royal Greens and British regulars, numbering over a thousand men, at Newtown, the Indian town near Baldwin’s Creek, opposite to the present village of Wellsburg on the Erie, and at Lohmansville on the Lackawanna railroad. Here they were for weeks hard at work. Tearing down the Indian houses, they built, with the old and fresh-cut logs, a fortification that extended up the slope of the hill to the north and along the western ridge nearer the Chemung river.

But where was the enemy? It was known that the raid of Brant, down the Walkill valley to the Delaware, had failed to draw Sullivan from his main purpose. The other parties of Tories and Indians had been equally impotent. What then should be done to drive back the avenging army and save their villages and crops?

Evidently the only safety was to join all forces. At a great council of Tories and Iroquois, held where Geneva now stands, it was decided to send wampum belts again to every and all tribes and bands of the Iroquois, and bid them assemble to oppose the invaders in the Chemung valley. Some of the parties that started in response to this call arrived too late. The notorious John Butler, who had led the expedition against Wyoming, was in command of the mixed forces of King George, red, black, and white, and the strategy and tactics employed by him showed the combination of the crafts of both savage and civilized man.

On Saturday evening, August 28, Sullivan’s advance pickets heard the sound of axes and saw many fires brightly burning along the hills just beyond Baldwin’s Creek. A scout sent out a day or two before, reported that the enemy were fortified just beyond the creek and west of the Indian village of Newtown. The march must now be made with a constant reference to ambuscade and with the greatest wariness. “Above all, no Braddocking.”

On Sunday, August 29, the day broke with every indication of very hot weather. The air was close and heavy. The army moved at nine o’clock, the riflemen being well scattered in front of Hand’s light corps, so as to act as scouts and skirmishers, while every man in the brigade moved with the greatest caution. Hardly had they gone a mile, before they discovered several Indians in front. One of these fired and then all fled. Going forward still further a mile, the riflemen found the ground low, marshy and well fitted for the shelter of hiding Indians. Moving slowly and alertly, they discovered another party of Indians, who as before, fired and retreated. Evidently their purpose was to lure the Americans into ambush.

Major Parr, commander of the rifle corps, now determined to advance no further without reconnoitering every foot of the ground. Ordering his men to halt, he sent one of them to climb the highest tree and survey the whole situation. The scout was unable at first to discover anything peculiar, but peering intently ahead, he made out a line of brushwood artfully concealed with green boughs and trees. Starting from near the Chemung river on the left, it ran up the slope of a high hill to the right, for possibly half a mile. Here had been the Indian village of Newtown, consisting of twenty-five or thirty bark houses, but most of the houses had given way to timber entrenchments and to the camp inside of them, though two or three were left so as to form, as it were, bastions for the newly-built fort.

Here the enemy had gathered to make their determined stand. Their force, numbering about nine hundred warriors from five tribes, had been reinforced by between two and three hundred white men, Tories and Canadians, drilled and aided by fifteen regular soldiers of the British army, and commanded by Butler, McDonald, and Brant, while two or three hundred more warriors were soon expected.

Such a position was a formidable obstacle to the advance even of an army provided with artillery. The right flank of the British rested on the river, their left on the side of a hill, while immediately in front of them and for a space of about one hundred yards was a clear field which their fire could sweep easily. Between this field and the Continental lines was a stream, since called Baldwin’s Creek, and then very difficult to cross. On the American right lay a valley so low and marshy that an attack in flank would seem nearly impossible. Thus the place was evidently well chosen.

Nearly the whole story of Indian craft in war is told in the one word, concealment. To hide their breastworks with the hope that the invaders might come very near to them without their being discovered, the Tories and Indians had laid boughs and greenery over the front and top. They had even planted out in front, here and there, fresh young trees, so as to give the appearance of primitive and untouched forests. They had stuck these young trees in the ground outside the breastworks and had thoroughly cleaned up the ground, so that no chips or evidence of human industry were left lying about. They hoped also that Sullivan’s troops would rush for plunder into the few Indian houses left standing outside the lines and would thus be entrapped.

Evidently, also it was their design that the Continentals, moving in a narrow defile and strung out in a line several miles long, should be caught between the river and the entrenchments, while the Indians in ambuscade could pour in their fire. They hoped to “Braddock” Sullivan’s force by stampeding the pack horses and cattle. On the high hill across the river, and on the summit to the northward, watching parties were stationed by Brant so that at the right moment they could quickly descend. Then by frightening the animals, sending them flying in every direction, they could complete the destruction of the army thus huddled together. With so many chances in their favor, the Tories and Indians hoped to give the Continental army such a check as to compel its return.

All these plans were frustrated by the great caution of Sullivan and the alertness of his lieutenants. When Major Parr, about noon, reported to his superior the situation of the enemy, Hand sent forward the riflemen to occupy the banks of the creek, within one hundred yards of the breastworks and under cover. The light brigade then moved to within three hundred yards and deployed in line of battle. Sullivan coming forward with the main army, sent Ogden’s flanking division along the river to the left of Hand’s light brigade and further to the west. He ordered Maxwell to remain in the rear in reserve. For a flank attack, he detached two brigades, Poor’s New Hampshire and Clinton’s New York, to move to the right and north. They were to make their way up the swampy valley, and gain, if possible, the enemy’s left and rear. In order to divert attention from this flank attack, Hand’s light corps opened in the center, while Proctor’s nine guns were run forward and posted on a hillock, directly in front of the angle of the breastworks and about two hundred yards distance from them. As everything had to be done in a rough country in the woods, on a fearfully hot day, it took several hours to get the batteries and the brigades into position.

Then opened a lively fusilade, of small arms, which held the attention of the enemy. It was proposed to allow until three o’clock for Poor and Clinton to reach the top of the hill (now called Sullivan’s Hill, on which the lofty monument stands), whence they were to turn and charge down upon the enemy. Yet Sullivan listened long in vain for the sound of musketry upon the distant right wing, notwithstanding that it was Poor’s intention to advance with unloaded guns and charge with the bayonet, for Wayne’s handsome work at Stony Point on July 16, only six weeks before, had stirred the army with an ambition to achieve a similar victory with cold steel. Colonel Cilley, who commanded a New Hampshire regiment, had been with Wayne on the Hudson and was now with Poor.

At three o’clock, Sullivan thinking it not wise to wait longer, gave order to Proctor to open fire with all his guns. The two howitzers, the little Coehorn and the six cannon opened with a terrific roar, while the light corps were ordered to be in readiness for a charge, as soon as the firing of the flanking column was heard. It was intended that the cannonade should be the prelude to a general advance on front and flank. The guns grew hot with firing, however, before anything was heard from the New Hampshire men, who had been obliged to face unexpected difficulties and especially to flounder through swamps, far deeper than anyone had supposed.

Proctor’s round shot, grape and bombs not only cut and tore the forest trees to the terror of the savages, but did terrible execution. In many places within the enemy’s line the bloody proofs of the terrific and destructive power of the shell fire were afterwards amply evident. Brant, their mighty leader, found it was all he could do to hold his painted warriors together. Suddenly, rather to their relief, than otherwise, runners from the hilltop came to inform their chief that the enemy had made an attack in force on their left flank, driven in the party of watchers, and were moving forward on the main body. Glad to escape the terrific missiles of the artillery, and to give his braves congenial occupation and one more suitable to Indian warfare, Brant led off a large party, possibly the majority of his warriors, to repel this new danger.

Turning now to the hilltop on the right and to the flanking operations, we behold the most startling episode of the battle, when for a moment it looked as if a cloud of red men was about to overwhelm this one isolated body of their foes. The second New Hampshire regiment under Colonel Reid, separated from the others in the brigade, suddenly found themselves partly surrounded by a semi-circle of rifles and hatchets. Their thin scattered line of riflemen, sent out to scour the woods as skirmishers, and at this time only a few yards in front of them, was quickly driven back before a whirlwind of fire. With unloaded muskets, the destruction of Reid’s regiment seemed certain. Nevertheless the salvation of the Americans was in the Indians firing too high. They were too certain of victory to keep cool and take sure aim.

This was the situation—Dearborn’s Third New Hampshire, Alden’s Sixth Massachusetts, Cilley’s First New Hampshire, and Du Bois’s two hundred and fifty picked New Yorkers, on the extreme right flank, and far to the northwest of the main body, made up, with the Second New Hampshire, the brigade. These regiments moving in the woods, in a country which no white man had ever penetrated, had become quite separated from each other. Poor, the commander, hoping to completely outflank the enemy, was far ahead on the right, too distant to be heard from. Clinton’s brigade, consisting of the Third New York under Gansevoort, the Fifth New York commanded by Du Bois, the Fourth New York led by Livingston, and the Second New York on the right under Van Cortlandt, formed the reserve, but they were still far below in the rear. The regiments were all small, numbering each about three hundred men. The great and imminent danger was that Brant’s seven hundred warriors might wholly overwhelm the men of one regiment before help could reach them from their comrades.

Such disaster seemed now to threaten. Starting his men on the run, Brant had reached the hill top, just as the men of Reid’s Second New Hampshire, nearly out of breath, and toiling amid the terrific heat, were only half way up the rough face of the rather steep eastern slope. At the extreme left of their brigade and nearest the British breastworks, which were a few hundred rods to the westward, Reid’s men found themselves far away and out of sight from their comrades in the other regiments, which were further to the right—east and north. Their guns were unloaded while their ears were deafened with the yell of hundreds of exultant savages who felt sure of scalps. In a moment more they were face to face with the foe. With their empty muskets, defeat and massacre seemed certain. They realized that their brigadier, Poor, was far away to the right, pressing his troops on to the attack, hoping to close in upon the enemy and prevent their retreat.

There was but one thing to do. It was to fix bayonets and charge. Reid shouted the order. His men, jaded as they were, pushed further up the hill, driving the enemy for a moment before them and getting a bare chance, in the momentary lull, to load their guns. Then began the usual fusilade among the trees. Yet it was still a desperate uncertainty and the enemy outnumbered them.

Not far away, Dearborn, with the Third New Hampshire, hearing the firing, realized at once the peril in which Reid was. Without waiting a moment, he took the responsibility, without orders, to right about face. He did so, supporting Reid and striking the enemy on the flank, while Clinton, equally alert, pushed forward two of his regiments. His object was to support the New Hampshires and if possible gain Brant’s rear.

Then ensued a severe fight in the woods, which from the nature of the situation could not last very long. Brant seeing his plans upset, ordered his men to retreat and save themselves.

At the same time, further down on the flats, Sullivan having heard the report of the guns on the hill, at once ordered an advance along the whole line. With cheers our men rushed over the entrenchments, and then a running fight of several miles, indeed all the way into the limits of the modern city of Elmira, ensued. Nevertheless the enemy were able to escape, being much more familiar with the country. They carried away their wounded in canoes up the river, and made off with, or concealed some of the bodies of their dead.

The battlefield was fully occupied by our trains and camp, and about six o’clock in the afternoon, when the pursuit stopped, three cheers told the story of another American victory. The known loss of the enemy was thirteen whites and many Indians. Twenty-six corpses of red men were found upon the field. Two prisoners, one a negro and one a Tory with his face painted black, were taken. General Sullivan reported three killed and twenty-nine wounded, five of whom afterwards died. All the patriot dead and most of the wounded were New Hampshire men, and all the casualties except four were in Poor’s brigade, Reid’s regiment suffering the worst.

In reality this was one of the great decisive battles of the Revolution, for it broke forever the power of the Iroquois. Throughout the war, except in small parties, neither Tories nor savages were able to gather for raids. As a military factor the warriors of the Six Nations never again appeared in or with an army. Sullivan and his soldiers had ended the flank attacks on the army, and opened the way for civilization into western New York and Pennsylvania. Indeed, for over half a century, or until the railways dictated the lines of travel, “Sullivan’s Road” was the main highway into New York from Pennsylvania.

CHAPTER VI
IN THE WONDERFUL LAKE REGION

It began to rain on Sunday shortly after the battle firing was over, and the next day, Monday, August 30, was a day of rest.

It was also necessary, in consequence of the very poor and insufficient provisions, as well as the want of enough pack horses, to cut down to one-half the rations of flour, salt and meat. However, as the country through which they were to march was rich in vegetable food, Sullivan issued orders, stating the facts, and asking that “the troops will please to consider the matter and give their opinion as soon as possible.” So late that afternoon the whole army was drawn up in the separate brigades and regiments. Then the question was put whether they would advance, taking the risk of hunger.

“Without a dissenting voice, the whole army cheerfully agreed to the request of the General, which was signified by unanimously holding up their hands and giving three cheers.” Neither the remembered horrors of Valley Forge, nor the risk of possible starvation could discourage the army. With many a laugh and joke, the men moved forward to their “Succotash Campaign.” They were happy to know that the heavier artillery, the two howitzers and brace of six pounders were to be sent back. The labor of drawing ammunition wagons and heavy cannon up and down hills would be much reduced. Nevertheless, the four three pounders and caissons, taken along with the Coehorn, meant much chopping in the woods to make a path.

On Tuesday, the line of march was taken up through the broken, swampy, and mountainous country. For their night’s camp the men were happy to find a level plain, but the next day they had to go through Bear Swamp, which was then a horrible dark quagmire six miles long. Having a clay bottom, the black mire held the water which flowed tortuously through the spongy soil, in which the vegetation of centuries had made a peaty mass, which the recent rains had made as unstable as a jelly and slippery as soap. Here was the divide of waters between the Susquehanna and the Saint Lawrence rivers, flowing into the Atlantic at Labrador or Hatteras. The Indian trail through this soggy country passed through defiles, over mounds and through ravine after ravine, rough and scrubby, while through all meandered a stream of dark water. Only with the most tremendous toil were the Continentals able to get through, and the rear guard did not reach hard ground until long after noon next day. The cannon were pulled through only by the toil of hundreds of men at the drag ropes, or by laying on the worst places corduroy, or a rough road of trees and brushwood. Many horses were mired and abandoned, and scores of packs with precious bags of flour and ammunition were lost. Altogether it was a most terrible experience, much worse than in the Pennsylvania swamp, called “The Shades of Death,” which they had traversed.

For years afterwards, that horrible night formed the blackest memory and gave the most disturbing element to the dreams of the old soldiers. In our time, as we travel through this drained and dry valley between the green walls of the hills on either side, we wonder as we look over the celery gardens where Bear Swamp was. Within half a century after Sullivan’s march and return, the forests were cleared and the Chemung canal, bearing millions of cubic feet of timber to the great cities, and especially to build the Maryland privateers for the War of 1812, traversed and drained the swamp. To-day smiling farms and vegetable gardens on either side of the well laid beds of the steam railway and electric trolley line fill the sunny and beautiful valley.

Just beyond this horrible swamp of 1779 lay the village of Sheaquaga, or “French Catherine’s town,” three miles from Seneca Lake, on the site of the present town of Havana, or Montour Falls. It was the capital of the Indian Queen Catherine Montour, and contained her “palace.” It consisted of about forty “long,” or apartment, houses of timber and bark, with splendid cornfields, orchards, and fenced enclosures, in which were horses, cows, calves and hogs. It looked as though the army would have, for a little while at least, meat rations. Here had been the home of Catherine, sister of Queen Esther and granddaughter of Adam Montour, who was the offspring of Count Frontenac. A Dutch family had also lived here among the Indians. It seemed strange to our men to find feather beds and other evidences of civilization so far in the wilderness. Some of it was the plunder from Cherry Valley and Wyoming.

The town was deserted, but our troops had to wait all day Thursday for the pack horses and cattle that emerged one by one, or in parties, from the darkness of the dreadful swamp. They found an old squaw, whom they compelled to give information about the Indians. Then they built for her a hut and left her some provisions. Moving northward along the eastern shores of Seneca Lake, through open woods and level country, they found corn roasting in the fire, their supper left untasted and all the evidences of the hasty movement of a large body of Indians.

The next day they moved as far as North Hector, to a village consisting of one very large apartment house with several rooms and fires. To this day the new timber, grown up in the place of the old forest cut through for the artillery, can be easily discerned. Resuming their march, they came on Sunday, September 5, to Kendaia, or Apple Town. This was an Indian village of the first class, over twenty large, long apartment houses built of timber and bark, some of them well painted. There were apple and peach orchards, with many hundreds of trees ripening their fruit, and a cemetery, in which there were tombs erected to the chiefs and made of hewn and painted planks. Here they met with a white captive, Luke Sweetland, whom the Indians had kept employed in making salt. All this lake region is underlaid with beds of the purest chloride of sodium, and in times of peace the Senecas and Onondagas drove a thriving trade with the other tribes in this necessity of life. They made their salt by boiling the brine from salt springs. To-day at Ithaca and Ludlowville the white crystals fill daily a freight train.

On the sixth of September the evening gun sounded at Indian Hollow. On the seventh day they reached the great Seneca town of Kanadesaga, lying on both sides of Castle Creek near what is now Geneva, N. Y. Here had dwelt Old Smoke, the Indian King, and his son who married a daughter of Catherine Montour. In 1756, during the Old French War, Sir William Johnson had built a fort, or stockade, in this town, which was regularly laid out with the open square, in which the fort stood, in the center. Orchards and gardens were plentiful, especially on the north and northeast. Although Sullivan had expected to fight a battle here, and had deployed his regiments for assault, yet the town was found to be entirely deserted, except that a little white boy three years old, captured from one of the settlements, was found playing, though nearly starved. The circular mound, on which the councils of the chiefs and orators were held, still stands, a monument of a nearly vanished race. Gleefully the troops marched in and through the town, with pumpkins and squashes skewered on their bayonets.

The Continentals were now in that renowned lake region of New York famous among the Indians not only for its salt springs, but for its abundance of fish and fruit, and the general fertility of the soil. The forest was still dense all around them, except the more frequent openings, but the Indian villages were numerous and with luxuriant vegetable gardens. In these, onions, peas, beans, squashes, potatoes, turnips, cabbages, cucumbers, watermelons, carrots and parsnips were plentiful, while great cornfields stretched farther off into the clearings and to the very edge of the forest, and orchards of apple, peach and mulberry trees were within easy reach.

It was this great store of vegetable food found everywhere ready that decided Sullivan and his brigade commanders, after a council of war, to push on further westward, despite the very scanty supplies of meat and flour rations. So the horses and the men unable to proceed further by reason of sickness or lameness, were sent back to the fort at Tioga Point, Captain Reed of Massachusetts with fifty men forming the escort. Thence he was to return again, as we have seen, to Kanawaholla, near the present city of Elmira, with supplies for the army on its return.

The main army, facing the setting sun, camped at Flint Creek September 9, and on the next day at noon reached Canandaigua, so named because here the trading Indians on the trail, or red commercial travellers on the road, “took off their pack” to rest. It was an Indian town of twenty-three large houses, with standing crops, all of which, as at the other places, were given to the torch. It is said that the women and pappooses hid themselves on Squaw Island, in the lake near the town. On Saturday, September 11, the Stars and Stripes were unfurled at the foot of Honeoye Lake, where stood the Indian village of twenty long houses. All these except one, selected for a fortified storehouse, were set on fire. The walls of this strongest dwelling were still further strengthened with kegs and bags of flour, and a ditch dug and abatis made. Then two three pounders were mounted and their black noses poked out of the port holes cut through the walls. Here the sick and disabled, amounting to nearly three hundred, were left, in camp. The weakest found quarters in the rooms and bunks of the Indian house. Then the whole army, now able to move as a light armed corps, pressed forward to the goal, which was the big Indian town in the Genesee river valley, near what is now Cuylerville, below Geneseo, N. Y. Delayed by storm and rain next day, only eleven miles were made to Adjuton, a village of eighteen houses, near Conesus Lake, where had lived two celebrities, Captain Sunfish, a negro, and Big Tree, a Seneca chief. The fresh evidences of savages near at hand, were very manifest on the Indian path leading to the Genesee town.

It may be wondered what had become of the motley British force after their defeat at Newtown. As a matter of fact, two hundred fresh Indian warriors had joined Brant just after the battle. They were clamorous to advance at once against the Americans, but those who had a taste of grape shot and bursting bombs were unwilling to make a stand. So the whole force of red and white allies of King George had retreated to the north and west, making camp near Avon, in Livingston County. Keeping out their scouts on the hilltops, they were well informed of Sullivan’s movements.

Now, knowing that he had left Conesus, evidently to attack the big town of the Senecas, Brant and Butler chose a strong position. It was remarkably like that of Braddock’s field, in Pennsylvania, wherein the pride of England’s infantry were changed, from red-coated soldiers, in the glory of lusty life, to heaps of bleaching bones. On a bluff, parallel with the western side of Conesus Lake, well forested, but full of deep ravines, Butler posted his men in ambush. He hoped that Sullivan would advance with his men up the well known trail between two ravines. He had broken down the old, rude bridge over the stream, but he knew that the Continental pioneers would be likely to build another out of the oak and hickory which abounded here. Here he expected to post his men and watch for the opportunity when the scouts should announce the nearness of Sullivan, who was without artillery. With his fresh reinforcements Butler was confident of victory.

William Elliot Griffis.

Ithaca, N. Y.

(To be continued.)